The Knives (A Criminal Book) by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Image, 2025. 9781534355590. 200pp.
If you’ve never read one of Brubaker and Phillips’ Criminal graphic novels, this is a good place to start even though some of the characters appear in previous books.
In 2012, Jacob Kurtz arrives in Hollywood to try to make it as a writer. A comic he created years ago, Frank Kafka, Private Eye, is being turned into a TV show. Of course the adaptation sucks. But he does reconnect to his Aunt Suzy, whose husband wrote B-movies. She decides to leave Jacob her huge place in the Hollywood Hills if he promises not to sell it or break it up.
Angie was raised by Gnarly after her mother was killed. She helped him run his bar and hung around with the criminals who frequented the place. Only after he was diagnosed with cancer did she appreciate what he had done for her. By then it was too late. And after he died the boss who gave him both his bar and the apartment above it decided to take both back. Angie became a thief.
A friend asks Jacob to give Angie a place to stay for a while, and he does. She comes and goes as she needs to after that. The two become especially close during covid. She even helps him market the comics he’s been working on.
But then she comes back beat up and in some kind of trouble that Jacob doesn’t understand. And someone has kidnapped Jacob’s aunt and is demanding a ransom he doesn’t have.
There’s a third character who’s appeared in other Criminal books who gets looped into the story later, but if you’re a fan you’re better off not knowing who it is. Just read the book without looking at the back or other reviews. Every thread comes together in a great way, and the story is completely satisfying.
Question for reviewers, librarians, and others in the book trade: This is the first advanced review copy I’ve read after downloading an LCP file from NetGalley. I loved the book more than I hate the app I have to use to read it on my computer (but I really, really hate that app). I’m currently looking for an alternative — if you read books you download from Netgalley, please let me know if you’ve found a decent way to read LCP ebook files.
